Another View: New York City's smoking plan likely to spread

Cigarette packs are displayed for sale at a store in New York City in March. In a proposal announced Monday, no one under 21 would be able to buy cigarettes in New York City; another proposal, announced in March, would ban tobacco product displays in stores.

Howls about the "nanny state" arise anew from New York City, where a new anti-tobacco measure is in the offing - banning tobacco sales to anyone under 21. Considering the high cost of smoking - in lives lost and money spent treating preventable diseases - and our follow-the-leader public policy on smoking, don't expect the idea to be contained within Gotham.

The initiative, announced Monday, comes as the city already looks to mandate that tobacco products be hidden behind store counters. Both measures seek to discourage young people from lighting up in the first place - and with good reason: Nearly 90 percent of adult smokers report that they started by age 18, according to a 2012 Surgeon General's Report.

New York City has started anti-tobacco trends before: More than a decade ago it became the first to ban smoking in restaurants and bars - the genesis of a statewide and nationwide movement. Smoking bans in parks, at beaches and other public spaces have followed.

Once complaints about the "nanny state" abated, New York showed gains against smoking. New York City boasted a 14.8 percent adult smoking rate in 2011, compared with the current national average of 19.3 percent, according to a USA Today report. The whole region has piggybacked off that success, backed in no small part by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's personal wealth.

He had put political capital and extraordinary capital - $600 million of his own money - behind his anti-smoking proposals. Not even Big Tobacco has been able to withstand such resolve.

While four states and both counties on Long Island have upped the legal age for buying tobacco products to 19, New York City would be largest city in the nation to align the age limits for purchasing tobacco and alcohol.

Needham, Mass., enacted its 21 limit for tobacco in 2005. The regulation is part of a comprehensive anti-tobacco effort in that community, the town's director of public health, Janice Berns, told WNYC.

The results have been startling. In a 2006 survey of high schoolers, 13.5 percent said they had smoked in the past month; by 2012, the rate was down to 5.5 percent.

Erika Johnsen, writing on the conservative blog "Hot Air," took aim at the New York proposal, which was unveiled by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the Democratic frontrunner to succeed Bloomberg as mayor, along with other officials. "Eighteen-year-olds are old enough to be independents, to vote, to serve their country, to go to prison, and etcetera ? but they're not old enough to decide whether or not to buy tobacco?" she wrote.

The answer from public health officials: Those other activities are distinctly different from smoking. One in five deaths in the U.S. are linked to smoking-related disease, according to the U.S. Department Health and Human Services. Battling smoking-related illness also saps health-care resources - to the tune of billions of dollars in Medicaid expenditures alone.

"When used as intended, tobacco kills one-third of the people who use it," said Dr. Thomas Farley, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene commissioner.

--Other measures

Concurrently, New York City has moved to mandate that stores bar cigarette displays, seen as cheap and effective marketing especially enticing to youngsters.

Several nations no longer allow cigarettes and other tobacco products to be displayed openly in stores that youths frequent, but no such restriction has yet to be successfully implemented in the U.S.

The Village of Haverstraw enacted a law in June that barred cigarette displays, but never implemented it. The village retreated in the face of an expensive legal challenge from tobacco companies.

Policymakers make smoking expensive in other ways. New York City and the state have some of the highest tobacco taxes in the nation. And more pain could be in the offing: In his 2014 budget plan, President Barack Obama proposes nearly doubling the federal tax on tobacco products - adding 94 cents a pack, to $1.95 - to help fund a "Preschool for All" initiative designed to expand access to pre-K and full-day kindergarten. While the added tax is expected to generate $78 billion for early education, it's also expected to curb smoking rates, especially among younger people.

The price per pack in New York City could reach $15. If that doesn't discourage young people from starting, public health officials should wonder what will.

--Journal News, Westchester, N.Y.

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Another View: New York City's smoking plan likely to spread

Howls about the 'nanny state' arise anew from New York City, where a new anti-tobacco measure is in the offing - banning tobacco sales to anyone under 21. Considering the high cost of smoking - in